Friday, February 13, 2015

A WORLD APART Stop #4

Private investigator Jesper MacMillian was sure he'd seen it
all. After all, in a city like San
Francisco, strange is what's for breakfast.
Following a long recovery after a
horrific accident, his life is finally the way he wants it- or at least, close enough. The only monsters on his radar are the ones
that keep him awake at night.

All that changes the day he meets Lena Alan.

Before MacMillian has a chance to brace for impact, Lena
drags him into a world where monsters aren't just real, they're hiding in plain
sight. Suddenly, everything he knows is
suspect, starting with his current case.
For Lena, a medium since childhood, it's just another day at the office.

For MacMillian, it's the beginning of the end of everything
he thinks he knows.

Lena sighed and set the cup back down. "Yeah.
Hate to break it to you, but you've got that about right." She
paused. Why did this spirit seem so
familiar? She narrowed her eyes. A second later, it came to her. Her eyes shot wide. "Oh my god- Jimmy? What the- what
happened?"

The man had been dancing from one foot to the other. He froze, peered closer at her face. "Lena?
For real? I felt something
pulling me here, but I didn't realize you were a- is this some kind of
trick?"

Lena winced. She hadn't known Jimmy long --he'd only started
working odd jobs at the shop about a month earlier-- but already she'd come to
like him. "Sorry. No trick."

The agitated look returned to his face. "Then I really am dead. Fuck, I was hoping all that shit was a
dream. He cracked my fucking chest open,
and I... I felt it. Hell, I watched."

Lena's stomach soured.
"I'm sorry."

He shook his head.
"That's not why I'm here.
Look, my mamío,
she was always telling us about souls and good and evil and what happens when
you die, and all that shit. I always
thought she was just a crazy old bat who'd had too much plum brandy back in the
old country, but she was right. About all
of it. Something's wrong. I don't know how I can tell, but I can. It's like... confused. Everything's all confused, and something
bad's going down, and I-"

Lena held up both hands.
"Hold up. You lost me. What's a mamío? What was she right about? What's wrong?"

Jimmy blew out a frustrated breath. "My grandmother. She's... I'm... shit. I'm not really supposed to tell you any of
this, you being a raklí
and all, but... you've heard of the Roma?"

Lena nodded slowly.
"Gypsies."

Jimmy jerked his head in the affirmative. "Right, well, I'm Rom. Or I was.
My mamío's a fortune
teller. Most of our women are, but she's
the real deal. At least, she's good at
palms and tea leaves and shit. The rest
of it- damn. I should've fucking listened to her." He
raked a hand through his hair, pulled it back and shot it a puzzled look.

Jimmy wheezed out a half-hearted laugh. "Yeah.
Different." He shook himself, and looked back up at her. "Anyway, Mamío was always going on about the 'cosmic harmony, and all
that. According to our beliefs, the
universe needs a balance of both good and evil."

Lena furrowed her brow.
"You don't sound convinced."

Jimmy shrugged.
"I always was a pretty shitty tsigani. The kris
-that's our, I dunno, internal court system, I guess- kicked me out of the
community about a year ago. Been on my
own ever since."

If that bothered him, he gave no sign of it. Lena swallowed the sympathetic murmur that
sprang to her lips. "Okay, so what
about this balance?"

Jimmy started to pace.
"Well, apparently, when something throws it off, things get all
kinds of crazy. So crazy, people say the
ancestors will give you signs to warn you about it."

His ethereal form shimmered as he drew a deep breath. "I wasn't supposed to, but I stayed in
touch with my family. Lately, Mamío's been saying her sister keeps
waking her up in the middle of the night, telling her something's wrong. Only her sister died during O Porajmos, back in the forties."

Lena's head pounded.
Three in the morning was too early to be dealing with ghosts, fortune
tellers, and the Gypsy Holocaust. She
pressed the pads of her fingers to her eyes.
"Okay. I agree, that sounds
bad."

Jimmy shook his head.
"If I'd just listened... but I thought she was crazy. I mean, I never told her, but she knew. She's like that." He stared off into the
fake ficus in the corner. "I should
have listened."

###

Want to stay informed
about A World Apart and the Shades Below series? Sign up for my email
newsletter! No spam, and I promise never to share or sell your information. See
you in your inbox! Newsletter
Signup Form